I recently read about directly sowing annual seeds into pots for container gardening. Generally I have bad luck with sowing seeds directly in my garden beds, I try to do everything to give them a good start but I just have poor results. So I buy each year annuals at my local greenhouses for most of my container and garden needs.

However I never tried sowing the seeds directly in any pots, putting one variety only in each one. I was thinking this may work better since I can control the conditions and give them optimal growing conditions. Also they wouldn't need transplanting, only some thinning.

I wanted to ask those of you with seed experience, which annuals are the easiest, quickest to germinate, and a fairly rapid grower? In the article I read, they used the smaller cosmos, some salvia's and short forms of sunflowers as examples. There were a few others that I wrote down but forget at the moment.

I will still buy most of my annuals and perennials from my local sources, since the growing cycle in our area is so short lived, but just thought maybe I'd try this other method to just see how it goes.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Pam